


Special Delivery

by belivaird_st



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 15:26:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14335446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belivaird_st/pseuds/belivaird_st
Summary: Carol delivers an ordered jewelry box to a much older woman that ends up with bad results.





	Special Delivery

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty morbid, but heartwarming just the same. My mind is such a wonder! I never know where I get my ideas from.

"There's no need for you to get out in the rain, Mrs. Durham. I will arrive with your jewelry box, special delivery," Carol spoke on the telephone at her furniture shop, one rainy, spring afternoon. She cradled the mouthpiece as she sideways glanced out the large store window at the misty weather. The city outside looked chilly and grey with people holding up their heavy umbrellas back and forth along the sidewalks, along with rows of cars and taxi cabs splashing through the slick, wet pavement streets. Carol was certainly not going to allow the 68-year-old retired Red Cross associate, drive over to the shop and pick up her item in this 30-something degree type of weather. She did not mind dropping off the valuable piece herself. And with her daughter, Rindy, coming along for the ride, who was sitting slumped back in one of the vinyl sofa armchairs, shaking around her mother's homemade rain stick she made out of beads and feathers, looked very bored and worn out. Carol sucked her lips together and crossed her eyes to get the little one laughing. Mission accomplished once she did; giggling like no tomorrow.

"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Aird," Dahlia Durham responded back in a frail, wispy voice. "You are too kind!"

"It's 134th Windsor Street, correct?"

"Yes, yes. Thats right, dearie. I must have you stay over for some gingersnap cookies and lemon herbal tea!"

"I'll bring my daughter along. We will see you very soon," Carol smiled warmly. They said their final goodbyes and hung up. Carol moved herself around behind the back of the shop desk and retrieved the delicate parcel. The jewelry box was made out of smooth, cherry wood furnish, with tiny flecks of gold and onyx stone trim. Rindy caught the beauty of the pretty musical piece and quickly got out from the displayed armchair.

"Ooh, Mommy, what's that? Can I see?" Rindy had left Carol's toilet paper roll rain stick behind on the chair, and was now standing beside her mother behind the shop desk, looking up with pure awe.

"It's a jewelry box, sweetheart. We are going to bring it over to Mrs. Durham, so she won't have to drive through the rain and pick it up here, herself," Carol explained. She lowered her hands for Rindy to be in perfect eye-level with the jewelry box and carefully opened the square, wooden lid. There, inside, a gold-diamond shaped carousel of a lion, a tiger, and bear, began twirling along with music playing a lullaby version of _"Gnossiene"_ inside. The circus animals rotated up and down, around and around, until the music stopped abruptly. A gold lever was built in the back of the box for anyone to wind it up. Carol did just that, and all the animals began to move and twirl around along with the music playing just where it left off.

"I want one of those, Mommy!" Rindy declared. Hours prior, her mind was so fixated with homemade rain sticks. Now today's new crave was cherry wood jewelry boxes.

"Maybe for your birthday, little girl," Carol answered. "Now where's your rain jacket, so I can help you put it on?" she had made the music stop by closing the lid and started to wrap it up with tissue paper while Rindy skirted off for her yellow raincoat.

"I want a jewelry box just like that one," Rindy told Carol matter-factly, as she stood there with her arms sticking out through the jacket sleeves, along with Carol kneeled in front of her, buttoning her all up.

Carol chuckled. "That one, huh?"

"Yuh huh," Rindy said. "Mrs. Durham is the luckiest woman in the world!"

"Oh really?"

"Yeah!"

"Not as lucky as Mommy _for she has you to tickle with!_ " Carol spoke in her best tickle-monster voice, and vigorously used her hands and fingers to tickle her daughter everywhere all over her sides, neck, arms, and stomach. Rindy squirmed inside her plastic rain jacket, squealing like a piglet. Carol giggled along with her as she stopped to let the girl catch her breath and peppered her with cool kisses all over her hot, flushed face.

"Stop it, Mommy Monster!" Rindy giggled breathlessly.

"You're a silly girl," Carol told her. Then, the grandfather clock displayed in one section of the shop, chimed a new hour of the early evening. Carol thought of Mrs. Durham immediately and stood back up on her feet, gathering Rindy towards the door. "Let's go give Mrs. Durham her jewelry box..." her daughter happily agreed by taking her hand, and began yanking it as Carol grabbed the tissue-wrapped item off the desk. She made sure to lock the shop up and flip the greeting sign CLOSED. Rindy skipped off towards the parked Packard, kicking rainwater with her pair of rubber boots. Carol headed towards the driver's side door and pulled her car keys out of her purse.

Once she and her daughter got inside, all buckled up, Carol slid the car key in and tried starting up the car, but it kept stalling and made these weird chugging sounds.

"Is the car sick, Mommy?" Rindy asked from the backseat. She leaned forward with her legs dangling off the edge of the vinyl seat.

"Sounds like it," Carol said. She twisted the key a few more times before yanking it out with frustration. "I'll have to get the car doctor to fix it, first thing tomorrow morning."

Rindy giggled from hearing this response. Her mother decided that the two of them would walk to Mrs. Durham's house instead. It was not a long commute. Just four blocks away. The rain had not been terribly bad for them. Just a light mist. Carol's mind kept going over Mrs. Durham and the poor shape of her car, and if there was enough food in the fridge for Therese coming home after a long 8-hour day of work. Therese was probably eating alone right now, wondering about her and their little Rindy. Carol would use Mrs. Durham's phone to speak to her the moment she got there and explain the whole situation.

Dahlia Durham's house was painted a periwinkle color with dark blue shutters. Carol had noticed a few cars parked along the driveway and thought maybe the old woman was having a party. Carol steered Rindy up the porch steps, lifting their hands, and stood on the floral welcome mat, pressing an acrylic finger to ring the doorbell. She and Rindy stood and waited, shivering slightly in the misty shower rain. A shadow emerged behind the closed window blind. The door unlocked itself and opened, revealing a young, dark haired woman, pressing a crumpled tissue underneath her pink nose. Carol, surprised to see this upset looking individual, forced out a kind smile while swaying her daughter's hand in hers. The woman was crying, but tried to keep her composure well. 

"H-hello," she said in a small, shaky voice. "You must be Carol Aird..."

"Yes," Carol said, uneasy. "I'm sorry, is this 134th Windsor Street?"

"That's right." The woman sniffled and fumbled with the crushed tissue like her life depended on it. "I'm Reina Durham. Dahlia's daughter... Please, come in..." she held the door wider and took a step back as both Carol and Rindy entered the house.

"You're Dahlia's? How lovely. This is actually my daughter, Rindy," Carol introduced. She studied Reina closely, who oblivious was not okay. "Oh dear, are you...?" her eyes searched the room. "Is your mother decent?"

Reina glanced down at Rindy before quickly reaching over and cupping her hands around Carol's ear to inform her that Dahlia Durham was dead. Carol pulled away as if she had just been struck by lightning with her hand covering her mouth. Rindy deliberately bopped her mother and asked her what was going on. She noticed tears forming, and her mother sniffling as if she had just got a case of the common cold.

"Th-that can't be right," Carol stammered. "I was just on the phone with her... She said she wanted us for gingersnaps and tea..." now she sounded like she had really lost it. She released her hand away from her daughter's while reaching for her purse. Carol's face was pinched up as she pulled out the tissue-wrapped gift. "I-I told her that I would bring over her jewelry box she ordered a couple of hours ago. Today, with the rain, I thought she might not be fit to drive..."

"Our car's sick, so we had to walk here!" Rindy explained. She gazed between the two women, having no idea why they were upset. "Is Mrs. Durham okay, Mommy?"

"That's Reina, her daughter," Carol replied, teary-eyed. She handed the jewelry box over, but the young woman refused to take it.

"My mother would want you to have it," Reina said. "You were the last person she spoke to, Mrs. Aird..."

"Please," Carol pleaded. "Call me 'Carol'."

"Alright then," Reina nodded. 

"May I use your phone?" Carol asked softly.

"Of course."

**xxx**

"So... she died?"

Therese held a sleeping Rindy close to her arms and lap on the living room floor, surrounded by the little girl's stuffed animals and porcelain dolls with the jewelry box in between.

"The doctors said it was a brain aneurysm," Carol spoke somberly on the piano bench, smoking her third cigarette tonight. "The daughter, Reina, was downstairs cleaning, when she heard a thump in the bedroom. She found her mother lying dead on the floor with the phone in her hands." Fingers shaking, Carol takes a drag of her cigarette before blowing a thin tail of smoke. "I was the last person she talked to, apparently. Can you believe it?"

"How did the daughter know who you were?"

"Dahlia kept a booklet of reminders on her dresser and her daughter read today's. Today's reminder was to pick up the jewelry box. Then she crossed it out and wrote my name underneath it, reminding herself that I was coming over."

"I’m so sorry, Carol," Therese said softly. Her arms shifted and felt the warmth of Rindy's body move slightly with her hair brushing the tip of her chin.

"If my car had run like it was suppose to," Carol began, eyes closing while rubbing the arch of her left eyebrow.

"Don't do that," Therese spoke firmly. "Don't blame yourself for that woman's death." Carol couldn’t answer right away, because her lips were trembling and she had lost her voice. She sat there by the piano, crying quietly to herself in her satin robe, while Therese carefully turned halfway around and set Rindy curled up on the couch before moving over to embrace the traumatized mother. 

"You were the last person she spoke to," Therese murmured as she wrapped her arms around Carol's neck, drawing them close together at the piano, rubbing Carol comfortingly on the back. "The last person to make Mrs. Durham happy."

"She still never came back to me, Therese," Carol weeped. Therese held her face with both hands now, staring deep into her eyes.

"I know that I did," Therese smirked, breaking into a smile that got Carol to smile, too. The blonde then began to laugh just before the brunette swooped over and broke it off with a kiss.


End file.
